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| Dev Patel as the Kid in "Monkey Man" |
It's a bit of a jumble at first, but as the story of "Monkey Man" progresses, we come to understand that our anonymous protagonist (Dev Patel), credited as "the Kid," is out for revenge. And we eventually find out why: a certain corrupt policeman, working for a religious figure named Baba Shakti (Marakand Deshpande), destroyed the Kid's village when the Kid was a little boy. Worse, this officer, Rana Singh (Sikandar Kher), tried to rape his mother and ended up killing her. The Kid has devoted his life to learning how to fight, and as an adult, he tracks Singh down and works his way into the underworld that Singh is a part of.
Directed, co-written, and co-produced by Dev Patel in what can only be considered a passion project, "Monkey Man" is a 2024 actioner about the Kid's attempt to bring justice to his mother's killer, and to fight for other marginalized people as well. This is billed as an American production, not an Indian one; it was shot outside of India, in Indonesia. Originally slated to be released on Netflix, the film got picked up by none other than comedian-director Jordan Peele and his Monkeypaw Productions, allowing it to be released in theaters for the full-throttle experience.
The story is shot through with flashbacks to the Kid's childhood. The Kid has fond memories of his mother, who taught him Hindu prayers and the story of the monkey god Hanuman, to whom the Kid remains devoted as an adult. The Kid now works as a "heel" (a pro-wrestling term meaning a bad guy that the crowd is supposed to hate) in an underground fight ring, deliberately losing matches to keep the audiences happy. In these fights, the Kid wears a monkey mask and is billed as "Kong." The matches are hosted by the smarmy Tiger (Sharlto Copley), who constantly underpays the Kid. Having tracked Rana Singh to a club called Kings, the Kid hits up the manager Queenie Kapoor (Ashwini Kalsekar) for menial work. Now working at the club, the Kid meets humorously shady employee Alphonso (Pitobash Tripathy, a.k.a. "Pitobash") and, with Alphonso's help, manages to work his way up the company ladder to where he gains access to the club's upper levels, where Rana Singh can be found carousing and getting high with the rest of the rich and powerful. The Kid trains a dog to come around to the building's back entrance; this is how he's able to sneak a revolver past security into the building. When Singh goes to the restroom, the Kid confronts him and tries to shoot him, but the attempt fails, forcing the Kid to fight through a crowd of gangsters and run for his life. Alphonso runs with the Kid, meaning the police are now chasing both of them. Alphonso hides in the streets; the Kid, wounded from the fights and from a police sniper's gunshot, finds himself hiding in a temple for the local hijra community (marginalized trans folks). Their god is Ardhanarishvara, a male-female fusion of the god Siva and his celestial consort Parvati—a fitting deity for the trans community. The Kid meets the temple's head, Alpha (Vipin Sharma), who helps the Kid to heal and to rediscover his strength and sense of purpose. The Kid grows close to the temple community and realizes that he's no longer fighting just for his mother. Meanwhile, the corrupt guru Baba Shakti and his right-hand man Rana Singh help an Indian ultranationalist win an election, thereby securing their own elevation in status even as they manipulate the faithful in a sordid tale as old as time.
The movie's marketing might lead one to believe this is some sort of Indian take on the John Wick franchise, but the film's pacing, tone, and message are anything but. The story is very internal; it's also thankfully free of the usual "revenge will lead you down a dark path" tropes. No character warns the Kid that revenge is uncalled for; in fact, Alpha, the priest at the temple of Ardhanarishvara, encourages the Kid to be who he really is—the same lesson that the god Krsna teaches to the warrior Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita: follow your dharma to the end. A musician at the temple (Zakir Hussain) even helps the Kid to train on a heavy bag by providing a musically percussive rhythm on his tabla drums, giving cadence as the Kid retrains himself after recovering from his wounds.
One striking aspect of the film is its depiction of poverty and corruption. I don't know enough about Bollywood and Tollywood movies to know whether they include much social commentary, but Dev Patel is an Englishman raised in the West (but with undeniable connections to the subcontinent) and thus arguably imbued with a social conscience. The cinematography of "Monkey Man" is gritty and depressing, with India portrayed as a place of ubiquitous squalor, not to mention a vast difference between how the privileged live and how the rest of the country lives: far apart in status yet physically jammed close together, rich and poor, with almost nothing and no one in between. What did Indians think of this portrayal of their country? Did they nod in sad agreement, or were they scandalized by the negativity? As an American largely ignorant of Indian culture, my own feeling is that the story wouldn't have worked half as well had we been handed a rosier picture of India. And I appreciate the commentary about corruption: if anything, Patel's film points to the idea that this is a universal phenomenon: things are dirty all over, and dirty in more ways than one.
The actors are all fantastic in their roles. Patel is a standout as the Kid seeking to find justice for what happened to his mother, to his village and, later, to the temple that took him in. Sikandar Kher, as Rana Singh, is a delightfully hateful presence and an impressively brawny bad guy. By the time the Kid catches up to Singh, Singh is an older man, but still tough as nails and not easy to take down, which makes the Kid's revenge all the sweeter. Marakand Deshpande as Baba Shakti is perfect in the role of the Indian version of Jimmy Swaggart, a dirty guru who cares nothing for the people he purports to care for. Pitobash is hilarious as the creepy, gimpy, but ultimately kind Alphonso, who struts around acting privileged when he's in front of the Kid, but who gets shit upon by the rich and powerful people he brown-noses. And we can't forget Vipin Sharma as Alpha, the trans priest who understand's the Kid's soul. ("Monkey Man" is, in fact, a master class on how to integrate alphabet people and social commentary seamlessly into a plot without preachily ruining the story. Western filmmakers really ought to take note: show, don't tell.)
"Monkey Man" isn't without humor, either: Sharlto Copley doesn't have a big role as the fight host Tiger, but he makes the most of his often-hilarious role as a filthy Westerner happily at home in a filthy business. There's comedy in some of the fight scenes, too: in particular, there's one very slow neck-stabbing scene in an elevator that had me busting a gut. Ashwini Kalsekar's Queenie Kapoor is also comedically vulgar even as she chases after enemies while wildly brandishing a pistol.
As much as I enjoyed the film's emotional highs and lows—and that crescendo at the end—"Monkey Man" nevertheless had some story-logic problems that were hard to swallow. You expect a certain amount of ridiculousness in any action movie no matter what it's about or what culture it represents, but if certain plot-related questions become insurmountable, that can detract from one's enjoyment of the movie. At the end, for example, when the Kid is fighting his way up the club to reach Rana Singh, and his friends from the temple come in to help him fight the gangsters arrayed against him, I had to wonder (1) why the police hadn't arrived to intervene, and (2) what consequences these friends would end up suffering for helping the Kid. Also: while we come to understand how the Kid was able to fight so proficiently, the Kid is also shown using various weapons, especially knives, in ways that would seem to indicate that he was once a military operative, but there's no mention of this as part of his background. A few short scenes and/or lines of dialogue might have fixed this plot hole. And it is a plot hole: with the Kid's background unexplained, it seems mightily implausible that he'd be able to handle himself so well with improvised and traditional weapons, which were never a part of the fighting he was doing as "Kong."
For a first-time directorial effort, though, "Monkey Man" was impressive, whatever its flaws. I enjoyed the story and appreciated the payoff. I also appreciated the commentary about the state of India today, and I see parallels between that portrayal and aspects of my own American culture. Not being a typical Bollywood production, "Monkey Man" doesn't have the musical ring of, say, "RRR." At the same time, it is refreshingly free of the usual Christian-tinged morality found in any number of American action films, and the movie's ambiguous ending leaves things open for a possible sequel should Dev Patel find the energy to make one.
Patel long go proved he had and has acting chops. I recall first seeing him when he was just a kid in "Slumdog Millionaire" (which, strangely, I haven't reviewed yet); more recently, Patel played Gawain in "The Green Knight," and even though I found his casting strange, I thought he was good in the role. Here, in "Monkey Man," Patel shoulders his most physically demanding role to date, and he delivers both the action and the pathos. As action movies go, "Monkey Man" is intelligent, dimensional, and heartfelt. See it.
ADDENDUM: a note about the fighting in the movie: Patel's character delivers a lot of side kicks and turning kicks that looked awfully familiar to me. Sure enough, when I looked up Patel's bio, I discovered he has a taekwondo background, which explains why his kicks look so well executed (and not very Indian—one major Indian martial art is kalaripayattu or just kalari). There's one scene in the ring in which "Kong"—called "Monkey Man" by the cheering crowds—knocks out his opponent with a single, beautiful kick.
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Nice review of yet another movie I'd never heard of that I would otherwise have had no interest in seeing. If and when it winds up on Netflix, your descriptions make it seem well worth the time. I'd watch just to get a feel for the Indian cultural aspects you mention. That rich and poor living close together has a familiar ring to it. There are enclaves in Manila, such as Makati, where the well-to-do live on an island of luxury, surrounded by a sea of poverty. I stayed in Makati once, took a walk, and was gob-smocked when I was suddenly walking through a scary slum.
ReplyDeleteI have those other two reviews queued up for a read. Perhaps later today.